I have to say that I did enjoy this movie. I have only seen Elisha Cuthbert in one other role which didn't impress me. Here, she was stellar. Her performance carried this movie with ample assistance from her wise and loving mother, Sherrie Miller (Valerie).It seemed credible that this gifted and intelligent "teenager" was drawn to gambling as a way to use her gifts to acquire (I won't say earn) money for her European adventure. As she gradually became obsessed with the next big payoff, it became clear that this was more than an obsession: it was a disease.My issue with the denouement was that Katlin (Cuthbert) received a very light sentence for her transgressions (rehab and return to school and no European trip). Wow, that was painful! She harmed a LOT of people in addition to harming herself. It is, of course, necessary to receive treatment for this addiction as it is for drug, alcohol, or any other addiction.It is also necessary to perform restitution for all the harm that she has engendered. The very end of the film shows that not only did she escape any serious punishment, but she apparently is going to "game the system" and use her intelligence to indulge her passion, regardless of any consequences (there may be none). Rather than being a sympathetic character, she becomes someone you might like to smack in the face a couple of times and then walk away. And I believe that this is exactly what the film makers wished to say.

I don't see how you could like Elisha Cuthbert and not want to see this.Don't read any further unless you hate Cuthbert and wouldn't see it if you didn't like great stories. "Cuthbert won the 2001 Gemini (Canadian television awards) for best actress in a dramatic program or mini-series and Sherry Miller, who plays her mother, won the Gemini for best supporting actress." Both well deserved. This was among the best Canadian made-for-TV movies I've seen - up there with "Human Cargo", "Prairie Giant", "Trudeau", all of which had big budgets and over four hours to tell their great stories, and drew on true life stranger than fiction).This movie had a small budget. What it did have, was Elisha Cuthbert, whose expressive face dominates the film, and rightfully so, since it's the ebbs and flows of her optimism and despair that we're following as she (spoiler follows!) becomes a gambling addict. The vulnerability of smart kids who think they're invulnerable, the easy links from mildly illegal football pools to more illegal organized house poker parties to taking pills and then hanging out in quite illegal after-hours casinos, were all made without preaching. At each stage you want her to get out and it's hard not to yell "get out!" at the screen, because Cuthbert is never unsympathetic or stupid. She's always almost out of the situation and trying to get wholly out of it, is what gets her in deeper trouble.I found her parents' behaviour especially effective dramatically and believable. Not only Sherry Miller, who gets the best "mom" part I've seen in any TV movie, and who deals with each situation appropriately and decisively, but the hedge-fund-manager Dad who understands gambling as a process intellectually but isn't there emotionally enough to help his daughter deal with its psychological effects. These are believable suburban parents for a character like Cuthbert's Kaitlin, who's not at all "spoiled" but does feel she's got a lot of rope before she hangs... all of which she uses. The affair with her 22-year-old boyfriend also makes perfect sense - he's a coward when dealing with the loan shark, and also with her, and even with her mother - though he obviously is the one who makes the whole house of cards fall in on the shark in the end.It's real hard not to cheer when Mom takes down the creepy pornographer who's threatening to "tear her family apart". I like that she goes back specifically to do it. You get a real sense of the mama-bear pushed to the edge to protect her cub. Though technically the loan shark Blair is not the guy who caused her daughter's dilemma (she owns it, completely), he does make a nice side character demonstrating how awful it is to live in Toronto suburbs. Yup, those are your neighbours in Markham, folks. I liked how ordinary the couple was, and how they were obviously turned on by the power they gained over young girls with the loan shark game - obvious sociopaths who make your skin crawl. Just like real suburbs! I rate this a 9 because of what it managed to do on such a low budget - you get RIGHT into the head of a gambling addict and you're THERE with her through the worst of it - becoming a slave of sociopaths in Markham or Surrey or wherever that was.

Well, I guess that the opinions of this film vary so much because it all depends on whether or not the viewer was able to relate the content and the film overall. Personally, I thought the film was incredible and was one of the more realistic films I've seen in a long time. However, like I said, if someone can't relate to a lot of it, I can see how the movie would just be considered 'so-so' or worse by them. I am 18 years old so I was 17 not that long ago. In having a young person write dialog for the script, I thought it enhanced the film greatly because certain things that the girls do and especially say are so realistic amongst teenagers these days, and yes I have known eighteen/seventeen year olds who got addicted to gambling, which leads to drugs,smoking and alcohol that are so extremely close to what is portrayed in the film. In my opinion, I thought the camera gave it a documentary like feel that made it even more realistic and it wouldn't have had the same effect shot any other way. Also, the way the film changed into dreary color schemes during Kaitlin's (Elisha Cuthbert) downward spiral was also a nice touch. I'm aware it won for some awards (to all the people who say the direction, editing etc. was awful, I mean come on how bad could it be getting nominated for best editing at eh?) and I was glad to see it up for some DGC Craft Awards as well. I'm not positive if it was up for any Geminis, but it was deserving of nomination(s) without a doubt. Acting was amazing all around, Sherry Miller was outstanding as the mother, Elisha Cuthbert was so realistic and reminded me exactly of a girl that I knew growing up.Charlotte Sulivan didn't have many lines but had a great presence nonetheless, and I believe the most incredible performance of the entire film was delivered by Evan Sabba.This movie is simply wonderful! Elisha Cuthbert is a terrific actress, and I have a feeling that her career is just going to take off! This film is a great, depressing gambling flick. It's not one of those ordinary, could-never-happen-in-a-million-years stories, because stranger things have happened. I would definitely recommend this movie to anyone who's in a too-happy mood. Excellent Film, I look forward to seeing John Fawcett's next project...

i watched this programme from start to finish i think its good acting but the plot line is quite scary actually at the end it was scary when katlin couldn't pay the money . what they did to katlin was scary and it's not like other movies/programmes.the acting was good so i give it a 10